Wednesday 10 March 2010

(500) Films of Empire - Day 175

362 - The Elephant Man - 4 stars
Along with The Straight Story, this is Lynch's most un-Lynchian work. Here he delivers a sympathetic retelling of the story of John Merrick aka The Elephant Man that has a tremendous performance from John Hurt. He is ably supported by Anthony Hopkins as Merrick's doctor and friend. It was nice to see Hopkins in this kind of role which he has been limited in since the success of Hannibal Lecter.
The black and white cinematography adds an ironic beauty to the proceedings and works perfectly for the story.
A beautiful and moving conclusion to the film is helped by the use of Adagio for Strings, one of my favourite classical pieces and one often used in film (Platoon, Alien 3, etc).

Days remaining - 190 Films remaining - 244

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